


down in the daydream

by helsinkibaby



Category: NCIS
Genre: Community: 1-million-words, F/M, Fluff, Het, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-16 06:56:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15431490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: When Ellie has an unusual dream, she knows at least one person will understand. Of course, that still doesn't mean she wants to talk about it.





	down in the daydream

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt : "you can buy my silence with cake."

“Ok, Ellie, I’ll bite. What’s up with you?” 

“What?” Ellie blinks as she pushes her plate away from her, shakes her head for good measure. “I’m fine.” 

“Uh-huh.” Alex crosses her arms on the table and leans forward, her empty plate already pushed in towards the centre of the table. “Which is why you’ve been spaced out half the time we’ve been talking and why you’ve left half your lunch on the plate which I don’t think has ever happened in the history of ever.” Which is a fair and valid point and Alex pauses, gives her just enough time to realise that before she continues. “So, c’mon, what gives?” 

“It’s nothing.” Just then the server comes by and begins to clear their table so they wait in silence until she’s gone. 

“Which means it’s something.” Alex evidently isn’t going to give up. “And if you’re stonewalling this much, it’s obviously something big that you just don’t want to tell me about.” 

It’s another observation that’s right on point and Ellie looks down as she bites her lip. Since Alex left NCIS to look after her mom, the two of them have made it a point to have lunch together every couple of weeks. It gives Ellie a chance to vent about work to someone who knows the people involved and it gives Alex a chance to have a break from her mom’s increasingly severe dementia. They’ve become closer than they ever were when they worked together and it’s just Ellie’s luck that they’re meeting on a day like today. 

“Tell you what.” Alex tilts her head towards the counter and the scandalously tempting display case of cakes on display there. “You can buy my silence with cake. How about it?” Her eyes are dancing but they grow wide when Ellie signals the server back over, asks for two slices of their chocolate cake, a rich decadent slice of gooey goodness they usually share. “Two slices? This is serious.” 

Ellie grimaces. “Well, I guess if anyone is going to understand, it’ll be you.” Her words have Alex frowning and Ellie takes a deep breath before she speaks again. “I had a dream last night...”

That’s as far as she gets before Alex gasps loudly, her hands flying to her lips as if to stifle the sound. Or at least keep back any other sounds. Like laughter. “Oh my God.” Her eyes are even wider than before, filled with equal parts shock and amusement. “You had the wood dream about Gibbs?” Ok, there may have been a little bit of horror in there too. 

It melts into confusion when Ellie shakes her head. “It wasn’t the wood dream. And it wasn’t about Gibbs.” 

“Then who? McGee?” But Ellie knows that Alex has worked it out when the woman leans in even closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Torres?” Ellie doesn’t even have to answer; her cheeks flooding crimson does that for her. “You had a sex dream about Nick Torres?” 

Out of the corner of her eye, Ellie sees their server approaching with two slices of cake so she says nothing until after the cake is in front of her and there is a fork in her hand. She knows she’s in trouble when not even a forkful of chocolate heaven can make her feel better. “Yes,” she mutters. 

Alex actually laughs. She calms down as she spears a piece of cake, but when she swallows it, she laughs some more. “Oh this is delicious.” She may even be talking about the cake. “I am going to require details.” She points her fork at Ellie. “And before you try to welch out on me, I seem to remember my three team mates all but shining a flashlight in my eyes when I was in this very situation. Plus it’s the most interesting thing that’s happened to me in weeks.” She taps the table with the palm of her hand for emphasis as she says, “Spill.” 

Ellie closes her eyes, the dream’s details still crystal clear. “I was at my desk, finishing up some paperwork. It was late, no-one else was there.” She runs the tip of her tongue over suddenly dry lips. “So I shut off my computer, headed for the elevator and just as the doors were about to close, I hear someone running... and then Nick came in.” 

Alex looks positively gleeful. “And?”

“He didn’t say anything. Just pressed the stop button and stared at me.” The look that had been on his face... she knows it was a dream but in that dream it had made her heart hammer, made her breath catch. Memory does the same thing now. “And then he kissed me.” 

“Please tell me that’s not when you woke up.” 

“Oh no. That was later. Gasping his name after an incredibly detailed dream.” She can’t believe she actually admitted that out loud, consoles herself with a large bite of cake. 

Alex tilts her head. “Just to be clear... when you say ‘gasping his name,’ what you mean is...” Index finger extended, she rotates it a couple of times, encouraging Ellie to continue. 

So she does. After all, why stop there? “After having possibly the most intense orgasm of my life. Which is ridiculously depressing.” 

Except from the way Alex boots, claps her hands together, she finds it anything but. “This is great,” she says, scrambling to cover herself when Ellie gives her an exasperated look. What I mean is, I always thought you two would be good together. That time, when your brothers were here? I lost a packet on Team Nick.” 

That’s something Ellie had never known and the memory of that time - of who her secret boyfriend had been - hits her hard. She waits for the usual pang of longing and grief to come but it doesn’t. She doesn’t know if that makes her feel better or worse. “It’s not like that between us, Alex.” 

“But it could be.” Alex must see something in her face because hers falls and she drops her voice. “Hang on, we’re not talking about just sex here, are we? You actually like him?” 

“Of course I like him, we’re friends.” It’s a weak retort and Alex doesn’t let her away with it. 

“Friends don’t have sex dreams about one another,” she counters. “And don’t bring mine into it; it’s not the same thing. I was uncomfortable because it was Gibbs. You’re uncomfortable because it’s a not so subconscious desire you’ve been trying to repress.” 

Ellie would deny it but she remembers sitting here in this very diner, in this very booth, with Tim, staring across the room at Nick, out on a date with a woman who was not her. Jealousy turns her stomach and she pushes her cake away. “Ok,” she admits, the first time she’s said those words out loud. “I may have certain... feelings... towards Nick. But it doesn’t matter-”

“Of course it matters!” Alex is a study in frustration as she throws her hands up. “You like him. And he’s had a thing for you as long as you’ve been working together.” Ellie opens her mouth to disagree; Alex wags her finger at her. “You never noticed because you were dating Qasim.” Again, Ellie waits for the pang of longing. Again it doesn’t come. “And Nick, despite some appearances, is not a dick. He wasn’t going to go after you when you were taken. And then...” She spreads her hands, lets her voice trail off. “He wouldn’t make a move until he knew you were ready.” 

Ellie narrows her eyes. “How do you know so much about it?” 

Alex chuckles dryly. “It’s literally my job - or at least, it was - to understand the human psyche,” she reminds her. “And trust me, Nick’s not so hard to figure out.” She pauses to pop another forkful of cake into her mouth. "And also trust me? You would not regret it." 

There's a knowing little smile playing around her lips, her eyes suddenly far away and Ellie can't quite work out why. Then something clicks in her head, the whispers of a long ago rumour, a grainy video of Torres singing karaoke, a hairstyle that looked like Alex's from behind... 

"Oh. My. God." Ellie's jaw drops and with it her fork on to her plate with a clatter. "It was true?" Alex says nothing, just smiles. "You said it wasn't!" 

"Ummmmm..." Alex tilts her head and wrinkles her nose. "Not so much." 

"Your exact words were, 'If I'd spent any time under that man, I'd be crushed to death by his ego.' How is that not a denial?" 

Alex has the grace to look abashed. "Well, I didn't exactly spend a lot of time underneath him, if you get my meaning." 

If she'd been asked moments earlier, Ellie would have said that her jaw couldn't possibly drop any further. She would have been wrong. Of course, it also made her think of some moments of her own dream where she hadn't exactly been under Nick either and she shifted awkwardly in her seat. 

"Shit, I shouldn't have said anything." Alex pinched the bridge of her nose with one hand, waved the other dismissively. "Look, me and Nick, we were literally a one night thing. That's all we were ever going to be and that's fine; it's what we both wanted at the time. But that was then. Nick's different now. And he'd be different with you." She waggled her head from side to side. "Well... hopefully not too different."

Ellie runs her hands through her hair. "And to think... I thought waking up this morning was as weird as my day was going to get." 

"What was it like seeing him this morning?" Alex changes tack completely, possibly trying to divert Ellie's attention from what she's just found out.

"Well, I wasn't as jumpy as you were." Ellie can't resist needling her just a little. Alex holds up both hands as if in surrender, but she's smiling so Ellie knows she's not offended. "But it was so..." Words fail her and she presses her lips together, looks up to heaven. "It was all I could think about." 

"You need to do more than think about it." Alex doesn't sound like she's willing to take no for an answer and Ellie's pretty sure she's not going to. "In fact, the next time we meet for lunch? I want you to have done something about it. In fact..." Her eyes sparkle. "I dare you to do something about it." 

Ellie grew up with three brothers. She's pretty much incapable of turning down a dare and Alex knows it. "Alex..."

Alex's grin widens. "I double dare you." 

Ellie screws up her eyes and resists the urge to bury her head in her hands. "I'm so screwed," she mutters but Alex hears her. 

"Let's hope so." 

"Alex!"

*

Back in work, Ellie tries not to think about her dream, tries doubly hard not to think about her conversation with Alex. She fails spectacularly on both counts. Firstly because she ends up chasing a lead with Nick, locating a witness, which involves sitting in the car with him going to the site and back to Navy Yard. And just because she has that kind of luck, when they do find the witness, he turns out to be more than a witness; he actually slips up and incriminates himself so they have to bring him back with them, put him in an interrogation room and she has to sit side by side with Nick as they do their thing. 

They usually pray for luck like that. Today Ellie can’t wait for the day to end. 

Which is also because Alex has taken to texting her every hour on the hour asking if Ellie has done anything about her dare yet. 

All Ellie really wants to do is shut her phone off, go home and sleep. And not dream. Is that too much to ask? 

She all but runs to the elevator at clocking off time and she breathes a sigh of relief when she’s standing at the back, the doors closing in front of her. 

Then a hand shoot in between the doors, making them spring open. The hand is rapidly followed by the rest of Nick’s body and he stares at her for a moment without saying a word. 

Carefully, unobtrusively, Ellie moves her hand so that she can pinch herself through her jeans. 

No, she’s definitely still awake. 

Then Nick punches the stop button and Ellie pinches herself again. 

Nope, still awake. 

“B, you’ve got to level with me.” Nick is standing in front of her, his expression blank and neutral, not giving anything away. His undercover expression, she calls it. “You’ve been blanking me all day. Did I do something?” 

Ellie feels her jaw start to drop and she clenches it shut tightly, shakes her head. She hadn’t intentionally blanked him, in fact she’d kept talking to him, but only about work related things. She hadn’t realised how many little interactions they routinely had throughout the day, small quips and moments that she didn’t miss until they were gone. 

“No, Nick.” She looks down at the ground. “Just a bad day, that’s all.” 

“A bad day?” His tone shifts slightly, from almost worried to almost confrontational. “Is that why you can’t look at me right now?” 

She can hear the challenge loud and clear in his voice, forces herself to drag her head up so she can look into his eyes. 

That may be a mistake. 

Because the look in his eyes? It’s the same one, the exact same one, that he had in her dream right before he kissed her. 

Her breath catches in her throat and he hears it, she knows he does because his eyes narrow. “Bishop?” he says and she sucks in a shuddering breath, reaches out her hand and lays it on his chest. 

Her heart is pounding. His is too, she can feel it through the thin material of his shirt. 

“No.” How she manages to answer his question, she doesn’t know. It doesn’t last, because all she can say next is his name. “Nick...” 

She half expects him to move away; instead he takes a step closer, so that she can practically feel the heat from his stare along with the heat of his body. He lifts one hand, reaches out and lays it on her cheek, gently, like he’s afraid she’s going to pull away at any moment. 

He’s still wearing the same look on his face that he was wearing in her dream, right before he kissed her. 

Now, she kisses him. 

That’s not the only difference. Because in her dream, she’d frozen slightly in surprise before she’d responded to his kiss. Nick, on the other hand, kisses her back straight away, all fire and passion as he threads his fingers through her hair, slides his other hand down her back, uses his body to press her against the back wall of the elevator. Her own hands aren’t idle either, exploring the planes of his neck and back and shoulders and lower, pulling her closer even as he’s pressing against her. 

This, she decided, is just as good as her dream. Maybe even better. 

It’s a shock like cold water when he pulls away, rests his forehead against hers and breathes heavily. 

Her heart is suddenly pounding for a different reason than arousal. “Nick?” she whispers again and she can hear the worry in her voice. 

Maybe he can too because he smiles as he runs a finger down her cheek. “Not here,” is all he whispers and she shivers both in memory and anticipation. His smile grows wider. “I’ll follow you home.” 

But not before he presses her back against the wall once more, kisses her with the same passion, his hands roaming over her body expertly. 

It’s the longest drive home of her life and once they get there, it’s one of the longest nights she can remember. 

And it’s even better than the dream. 

She’s standing at her kitchen counter the next morning when she hears her phone chime. When she locates it, she sees several unread messages from Alex, all of them various degrees of “Well?” 

She grins, sends back three little words. 

“You were right.” 

She shuts off her phone before Alex can respond, walks back into bedroom with two cups of coffee, which neither she nor Nick manage to drink. 

She doesn’t regret a thing.


End file.
